The allegations levelled by the prosecution in Chicago against Tawwahur Rana is very similar to the information that the National Investigating Agency has collected on the man. The prosecution in its closing arguments made it clear that it was Rana who helped his friend David Headley carry out the 26/11 attack.
Sources in the NIA say that the charges against Rana levelled by the prosecution is similar to what we have on him. He had opened a branch office of his immigration law business which is said to have provided cover for Headley when he went about scouting targets for the 26/11 attacks.
NIA sources however say that they were looking for more information and this was supposed to come out of the horseâ€™s mouth. Our independent investigations have shown that Rana had constantly helped Headley in his endevours. The NIA which will probe Rana after the completion of the trial at Chicago will book him on criminal conspiracy charges, sources said.
However there is one interesting point made by the prosecution during the course of the arguments at Chicago. The prosecution apart from speaking about the 26/11 attack had also claimed that both Rana and Headley had plans for the future as well. The prosecution makes a clear mention that the duo had future goals as well.
The NIA says that during their investigations, they have found that both of them had most of their plans in India. Although the ISI was using both these men for global operations, the maximum data that they have managed to collect has been on India. Rana had not helped Headley only for the 26/11 attack, but he had assisted him in each of his other operations, be it in Delhi or even Pune. The agreement between the two was very clear. Headley had been trained to scout targets while Rana an expert with documents helped him cover his operations. The fact of the matter is that Rana was always in the know of what Headley was up to and they reported to the same handlers in Pakistan.
However when the NIA manages to get permission to interrogate Rana, the questioning would be three pronged. The most important one would be pertaining to the 26/11 attack which would be followed by his ISI links. However for the NIA, the questioning regarding his future operations will also be extremely crucial. The NIA has in its possession certain documents relating to Ranaâ€™s visit to Kochi.
A team of the NIA which has been working on this aspect of the case say that he had visited Kochi in Kerala. IGP of the NIA, Loknath Behra had said that there was a headway made in this direction of the probe and in due course of time the details will be made known.
Sources however add that his purpose of the Kochi visit was clearly to conduct a recee. There were locals in Kochi who have helped Rana. Investigations till date show that his visit was more of an exercise to lay the ground work. When one looks at the Rana visit in the light of the statement by Ilyas Kashmiri, it does make sense that this man visited Kerala. Kashmiri had clearly stated that he wanted cadres from Kerala to carry out his ambitious Ghazb-e-Hind project. Moreover Kashmiri was also in touch with Headley and their proximity is not something that is unknown.
Rana had visited Kochi under the guise of an immigration consultant. All through he was acting as per the instructions of the ISI. Sources also add that he may have set up fronts in Kerala like how he did for Headley so that terror cadres could carry out operations under cover. The fact that he conducted a recee is yet to be ascertained since Rana was not trained to do that.
The NIA says that his visit to Kerala was for a specific purpose. His interrogation would reveal the exact details. When Rana was in Kerala, he had placed an advertisement in a local paper inviting visa seekers to both the US and Canada. This according to investigating agencies was a cover up and this front was possibly used to get cadres under one umbrella which Kashmiri was speaking about.

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Photo courtesy: GaurdianThe government has denied Anna Hazare the permission to go on a fast. This can be well debated whether the government was right in doing so or not.

Firstly, the right to fast comes under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution which deals with right to expression. The government’s decision to crack down on persons going on fasts can be debated on various counts.

According to legal experts, the decision of the government to deny Anna Hazare the permission to go on fast can be challenged before the Supreme Court of India which has a plethora of judgments on this subject. The Supreme Court has time and again defined the right to speech and expression as imbibed under the Indian Constitution.

Legal experts say that India had attained independence through peaceful protest and going by the protests being carried out by both Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare there is no doubt that they are following in the foot steps of what all our freedom fighters did.

There is no ruling of any court which bans fasting. It is each ones individual right to go on fast since it is a manner in which one can protest against the government and there is no bar on that. The freedom of expression and speech under which the right to fast comes under is incorporated under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution. This right cannot be denied unless and until there is an illegality. However legal experts say that the manner in which the government has denied Anna the right to fast can well be an illegality. This right cannot be denied outright, experts also point out.

The government has been giving many excuses and this cannot be accepted and hence can well be challenged before the Courts. On one hand the government says that they apprehend a law and order problem if this fast is allowed. However look at what happened with Baba Ramdev. He was on a fast for a couple of days and there was no violence. The issue only began when there was a crack down and hence we all know who started the problem. By curbing people the right to go on fast, the government is acting in a manner opposed to the Constitution of India.

While dealing with such matters, the government needs to take into account certain things. They will need to keep an eye on the manner in which the protest is being carried out. They cannot deny permission outright. They can act only if they feel that the protest is turning violent. However what the government will need to see here is that in the past protests by the same persons has not turned violent and hence there is no justification in denying permission. The other thing the government could do is to fix responsibility on the person leading the protest. This would ensure that the security is the responsibility of the person undertaking the fast.

Now coming back to the issue of right to fast, the government will be in a position only if the person claims that he would fast unto death. There is no law which allows this and if a person says he will fast unto death then it would fall under the ambit of attempting to committing suicide as mandated under the Indian Penal Code. If there is such a declaration then the government is well within its right to stop the person/deny permission or forcibly evict him out of the place.

Justice Santosh Hegde, member of the Lok Pal drafting committee says that the government has not acted correctly here. The refusal of permission in the initial stage is bad in law. The government is within its rights to take action only if the assembly turns violent. However there is one bit of advise I would like to give Baba Ramdev now and that is not to go ahead with his protest in public glare. I am saying this only because this government is capable of introducing some bad elements in the assembly who in turn will kick up a racket and at the end of it Baba Ramdev will have to take the blame.

On whether the Lok Pal drafting committee would continue to boycott the meetings in the event of the Baba Ramdev fiasco, Justice Hegde says that there is no such plan. We will continue with the meetings and as per my information the meetings will go on as per schedule.

There was a dire need for a full fledged terror data base in India and going by Monday’s meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, it appears that the much awaited National Intelligence Grid or Natgrid is underway.
The idea of setting up Natgrid would be to merge all databases of individuals into one which could be accessed by various agencies. The issue in India was there was no proper data base of every individual and more often than not after every terror strike, we have found our agencies to be groping in the dark.
While this would help a great deal in combating terrorism emerging out of India soil, it would be hard to say whether it would have it effects on terrorists coming in from other countries. The Intelligence Bureau points out that it is essential that we deal with home grown terror first since these are the people who ultimately end up facilitating those who come from outside.
In India there are 1000s of terror cells and modules which a to operate. There is absolutely no data base on most of these persons and this in turn helps these cadres operate with ease. In India the agencies tend to build up a data base after an attack is over. This has only ensured that the terrorists have got more time to slip out and we have seen several times in the past that once a person manages to slip out, we never get him back.
Security agencies point out that although India does have a capable policing wing across all states they remain handicapped for the want of data. Take for instance if a terrorist of Gujarat origin is nabbed in Rajasthan, then the police teams of both states will need to coordinate. In the past we have seen due to lack of coordination and most of the time ego clashes between the police departments of both states information is not shared. With Natgrid, this issue would be solved and the respective departments could access the data base without having to coordinate with each other. In short terrorism would not be a subject matter of one state alone and this data base would be national property without any jurisdiction, security experts also say.
Under this set up, police officials would have to feed information about each person to this data base. This would include credit card details, residential proof, immigration details and all other transactions regarding a person. Natgrid would not only comprise information about people under the scanner. It would have data of every citizen of India. Apart from the above mentioned details, the data base on a person will also comprise information about a person’s bank accounts, finger prints, property details, telephone details and education details.
An official in the IB says that the police will have a big role to play to ensure that this data is in place. The police not only have to feed in the first bit of the data, but there is a need to keep updating the data. Hence there is a lot of manual work load on the police and they cannot afford to slip up. In addition to this the Intelligence Bureau too would keep providing its inputs which again needs to be updated. It will be a continous effort for the police and all other agencies and in case they slip up then we will be back to square one.
Hence when there is an issue with a particular person, the police would have access to that person at the click of a button. Prior to this, the police of a particular state had to call his colleague in another state and after a lot of bureaucratic procedures, the data was shared. This procedure normally took anything between a week or two, which in turn gave time for the person in question to slip out.
Natgrid would also help the police and the Intelligence Bureau keep a tab on persons with suspicious backgrounds. The police would have access to all his data and any movement by this person would also be tracked with the help of this data base.
The international terrorists: While this would take care of the home grown problem the issue with regard to international terrorists also needs to be sorted out. Senior police officials say that in case of those terrorists who have slipped out of the country, there is a need to interact with the police of the particular country and also the Interpol and update the data. This would have to be done on a regular basis so that the police can keep a tab on such persons who try and enter into the country.
There will be a training programme for all police personnel across the country on how to feed data into the server. They would also be told on what is to be fed since data fed should not lead to any sort of confusion during investigation. Home Ministry officials say that it is necessary that the right data is fed since they do not want any problems for ordinary citizens due to wrong data pulling up.

First the death of Osama Bin Lasden and now the alleged death of Ilyas Kashmiri. There appears to be a pale of gloom in the terror circles of India following the news regarding these two dreaded terrorists. Although both these men limited their role in India, their names were used constantly to recruit as well as motivate cadres in India.

Osama was a key figure in terror circles across India and he was no less than a God to these youth who took the path of terror. However over the past one year, Kashmiri with his blatant statements like Ghazb-e-Hind was gaining a lot of ground especially in Kerala and this was the state the man himself wanted to launch every terrorist attack out of.

Kerala has a lot of splinter groups fighting for the same meaningless cause of Jihad, but what Kashmiri had managed to do was unite these forces. Very recently, Kashmiri had said that all recruitments for Jihad would happen from Kerala. He felt that the cadres from this part of the world had the most determination and also the loyalty factor was immense among them. Moreover picking up cadres from Kerala was always easier for any terror group since the mindset among a lot of youth from this state is pro Pakistan, according to Intelligence Bureau reports. In addition to these communal tensions are extremely high in Kerala and following every communal clash there is a major recruitment drive that always takes place.

Terror groups such as the SIMI and the Indian Mujahideen which are very active in this state had started to lose out over the past couple of years. Most of them had split into several groups and they started to find that there was no focus in their operation. However with Kashmiri deciding that he would launch his attacks from this state, there was a huge change in the mindset of the terror groups. They had found a leader, an inspiration and also a motivation in Kashmiri. He had started to become their next Osama Bin Laden.

Both the police and the Intelligence Bureau have said that it was becoming extremely difficult to stop this phenomenon in Kerala and to a large extent the situation was getting out of control. Not only was there the ideological influence from Pakistan, but the funding from the Gulf made matters even more worse. In the past couple of months, Kashmiri had become a key factor among several youth and they blindly followed him thanks to his warrior status. The fact that he fought with one eye and his bold statements were all inspirational for these youth.

For Kashmiri’s pet project the Ghazb-e-Hind, the recruitment was going to be done primarily from Kerala. The process had already commenced and all these youth were transported across the border to be personally trained by him. The biggest worry for Indian agencies was not only the fact that he was an inspirational leader, but also he taught them to become fierce warriors.

When one looks at a Kashmiri he just believed in a full fledged war. He was the one who brought back life into the Al-Qaeda with his expertise in operations. What made him even more deadly is that he was good in three departments- ideology, planning and execution. There are very few terrorists who possess all these skills. Hence going by his expertise, it becomes clear that the recruits from India were being imparted with very sophisticated training. Intercepts picked up on the Indian youth show that they were being trained in every possible department- use of ammunition, fidayeen strikes, bomb blasts.

His training pattern has been extremely successful considering that he belonged to the Special Services Group of the Pakistan army before falling out with them. He has even claimed that he had trained the ten terrorists who undertook the 26/11 attack. Going by the manner in which that attack was carried out, it clearly shows the skills the man possessed.

The IB says that the other problem was that in the past couple of months, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba too was getting closer to Kashmiri. The Lashkar did find itself on the back foot in India for sometime now and hence it used the expertise of Kashmiri to regain control in India. India can sure breathe a sigh of relief with the news of Kashmiri. There is going to be a natural disintegration of terror forces in most parts of India especially in Kerala since their leader is dead. Moreover Kashmiri was in the know of various plans for India, which only he could have executed with deadly precision, the IB also adds.

While there may be many other leaders the youth may look to for inspiration, the fact of the matter remains that Kashmiri was the best at the job where the operations and execution aspect of terrorism was concerned.

R VaidyanathanThere has been an uproar over the issue of black money stashed away in various countries. Fasts, protests and now a back lash by the government, you name it, this issue has seen a lot of twists and turns. The big question is how long will India take to bring back all the black money that Indians have stashed away abroad. The answer is- if the government seriously pursues the issue then it will take anything between 6 months to one year to get all this money back.

We speak with R Vaidyanathan a Professor of Finance at IIM, Bangalore who is also an expert on this subject. Here is what he has to say.

As per the Global Financial Integrity which is a non profit organisation the estimated value of illegal financial flows held abroad is around 500 billion dollars. While calculating this in Indian money, the amount comes up to a whopping Rs 22.5 lakh crore. As per Konrad Hummler, Chairman of the Swiss Private Bankers Association, 1 trillion out of 2.8 trillion Swiss francs is black money. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had also said that a majority of the funds stashed away in the Swiss Banks belong to Indians. This would mean that out of the 1 trillion US dollars more than half could be owned by Indians. This alone comes to US$ 500 billion. And this is only bank deposits.

While these are statistics, the key question is how do we bring back this money. If the government is serious about it then it can very well bring back this money. However the seriousness of the government in this matter is very crucial in this case. A delegation led by the Prime Minister of India himself must speak with the Swiss officials regarding this issue. However this need not be in public glare and there is no need to disclose names and things like that. The intention should be to bring back the money. Why I am saying that the Prime Minister should head these talks is because only then will the seriousness of the issue be known to the country in question.

Now bringing back this money may not seem as easy as it sounds. When we speak with the officials concerned in those countries, we need to tell them to return this money. However we should also offer to pay 20 per cent tax while doing so. This would make the process easier and also more convincing.

The other question now would be what happens to the persons who have stashed away their money in these banks. If the money is earned through legitimate means then that person could also go before the Reserve Bank of India and make a claim. He will need to prove that the money that was stashed away was earned through legal means and will have to submit proof for the same. However if the money has been earned illegally then he may as well forget about it.

When we speak in terms of 500 billion dollars stashed away we should also remember that this money does include some funds which are being used for narcotic trade and also terror funding. It would be very difficult to get this money back. Hence for a start we may as well bring back the money which has been stashed away by the big wigs in our country.

Was he some terrorist that he had to be picked up amidst such high drama and urgency, Justice Santhosh Hegde, member of the Lokpal Bill bill drafting committee had to say about the Baba Ramdev incident.
It has brought back memories of the horrific emergency which imposed in the month of June 1976.
Not only is this a clear case of violation of fundamental rights but it appears to be exactly like the situation that prevailed during the emergency. What was the hurry and was this some emergency situations where terrorists were slipping out. The government has a lot to answer on this, Justice Hegde who is also a former Judge of the Supreme Court had to say when asked about the current situation.
memories” of the June 1976 internal emergency.
Was this necessary to treat the protestors this way? They were protesting peacefully. They were beaten up and the brutality which I witnessed has pained me no end.
I don’t think anyone has the right to disturb a peaceful agitation.
It is the fundamental right of every citizen to gather peacefully to demonstrate and till yesterday nothing untoward had happened which gave room for any suspicion that there may be a law and order problem. This looks like a case where the government wants to curb the voice of the people.
This is a violation of the fundamental rights of citizens and also a violation of the human rights of the people who were present there.
When a democratically elected government resorts to such action then the situation is very bleak. What was the emergency in acting like this? Just because negotiations fail you don’t resort to force. want an answer from the government as to what ignited the situation and shall not rest until answers are given. I feel for those various people who came all the wasy from different parts to support the movement.
I don’t understand the need to act in such haste. He had permission to use the Ramlila ground and the government was aware what was going on there. The use of force is to be condemned since the demonstration was vocal and never physical.

Ayman-Al-ZawahiriWith the reported death of the Ilyas Kashmiri, one of the most dreaded terrorists, the Pakistan based terror groups find themselves weakened once again.
The death of Osama Bin Laden and now Kashmiri will surely put the Al-Qaeda on a back foot, says Intelligence Bureau sources. However it would be too optimistic to expect that it would be curtains for the Al-Qaeda since they still do have some strong leaders left.
The IB says that while the death of Bin Laden was a huge loss for the Al-Qaeda, the killing of Kashmiri will hurt them more. For one, Bin Laden was not all that active and he was more of a motivator and ideological leader. However that was not the case of Kashmiri, who was still active and a number of terror outfits in Pakistan relied heavily on his training. An expert on the battle ground it is suspected that he is the one who imparted training to the terrorists who staged the 26/11 attack.
Kashmiri used to specialize in Fidayeen strikes and his means were always fierce which made him even more deadly, security agencies also point out.
Now if the news of Kashmiri’s death is confirmed then he leaves behind a huge vaccum which terror outfits in Pakistan may find hard to fill.

Who remains?
Ayman al-Zawahiri: A physician and the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) he opposed the secular Egyptian Government and sought to overthrow the government. In the year 1998 the EIJ merjed with the Al Qaeda.
His prime target has always been the United States of America and this was one of the major reasons why he merged with the Al-Qaeda. Considered to be the successor to Bin Laden, some of his high profile crimes include his role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.

Mullah Omar: There has been conflicting news on this man. A couple of days back it was claimed that he had died, but there is no confirmation till date about the same.
According to the FBI, Mullah Omar’s Taliban regime in Afghanistan sheltered Bin Laden and his al-Qa‘ida network in the years before the 9/11 attacks. Although Operation Enduring Freedom removed the Taliban regime from power, Mullah Omar remains at large and represents a continuing threat to the United States and its allies. Mullah Omar like Bin Laden had become an ideological figure in the last few years. He was not actively involved in warfare but had a big say in the affairs of both the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban

Sirajuddin Haqqani: A top Taliban commander, he announced himself to the world when he took over the Haqqani network from his father Jalaluddin Haqqani. The recent coming together of the Haqqani network and the Al-qaeda had US forces worried since Sirajudin was expected to take over the operations part of the terror group.
The US says that the Haqqani network helped plan the suicide bombing against the C.I.A. base in Afghanistan in December in which C.I.A. operatives and a Jordanian intelligence officer were killed. In addition to this India also believes that he had decided on playing an active part in Kashmir and had been rallying his troops for that battle.

Atia Abdur Rehman: The number three man in the Al-Qaeda today operates out of Pakistan. He was one of the closest associates of Bin Laden and has been controlling operations to a large extent against US forces. He was the Al-Qaeda’s emissary based in Iran before coming into Pakistan to assist Bin Laden.

photo by- investigativeproject.orgOne of the world’s most dreaded terrorists, Ilyas Kashmiri has been killed in a drone attack at South Waziristan today. The death comes close on the heels of the 26/11 attack taking another twist in which it has been said that Kashmiri was the one who scripted the attack and the same was approved by the ISI.
While Kashmiri remained a threat to the entire world and the United States in particular, India is thrilled with the information of his death.
Kashmiri’s obsession to undertake attacks on Indian soil is nothing new. His latest plan was to carry out an operation known as “Ghazb-e-Hind in which he wanted to ensure the destruction of India.
Who was Kashmiri? Also known as Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, this man born in the year 1964 started out as a mujhahideen fighting the USSR. Hailing from the Kotli district of Pakistan occupied Kashmir, he was from the very beginning in the close company of the dreaded ISI in Pakistan. There were reports that he was part of the Special Services Group of the Pakistan army too. This man who lost one eye while fighting the Soviets was one of the fiercest warriors in Afghanistan.
However Kashmiri’s primary agenda had always been Kashmir and he had said on several ocassions that he wanted to complete the battle in the valley. Soon after the Soviet war, he spent a lot of time in Kashmir and introduced the militant group, the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) in India. However there was a falling out between him and the ISI when the latter insisted that he fight alongside Maulana Masood Azhar in Kashmir. Kashmiri refused to do so and fell out with the ISI. This prompted him to start his own outfit called as the 313 brigade which today is associated with the Al-Qaeda.
During his battle in Kashmir, he was also once arrested by Indian forces. But he managed to escape after two years in prison. On his return to Pakistan, he continued to control operations in Kashmir and was even awarded by Pervez Musharaf who was the army chief at that time.
However after his fall out with the ISI, he even attempted to assassinate Pervez Musharaff for which he was arrested. He was however let off following which he continued battle US forces in Afghanistan under the banner of the 313 brigade.
In the year 2009, US forces had claimed to have killed this man at North Wazirstan. However that news proved to be false and Kashmiri came out in the open and gave an interview to Salim Shehzad of Asia Times Online who was recently killed allegedly by the ISI.
On August 6, 2010 the United States labeled Kashmiri a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” while the United Nations added him and his group HuJI to its blacklist established under UN Security Council Resolution 1267.
The 26/11 connection: The connection that Kashmiri had to this attack had slowly started to come out following an interview to Asia Times Online and now the death of Shehzad. Speaking about Kashmiri, the late Shehzad had told us that Kashmiri was in the know about the 26/11attacks. He also said that Kashmiri had said that the attack was originally conceived by a Pakistani security agency.
As a run-up to the attack several low profile attacks were carried out in India. Under the direction of General Ashfaq Kayani — then the Inter Services Intelligence director general; now the Pakistan army chief — low key attacks were initially planned in India. This plan continued when General Nadeem Taj took over as ISI chief after Kayani was promoted to his present position.
A few dozen terrorists were trained at the Mangla dam near Islamabad to be later sent to Gujarat from where they were to travel to Kashmir and give the militancy in that state a terror fillip. Lashkar leader Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhwi, who faces a trial for his role in the 26/11 attacks, was part of this plan.
After Al Qaeda representatives stepped in, they suggested that instead of carrying out a low-profile attack on Kashmir, the 26/11 attack be staged instead. Lakhvi and his ISI minders disassociated with the original plan of attacking Kashmir and decided to go ahead with this attack.
Shahzad had also pointes out that Kashmiri believes India will soon involve itself militarily in Afghanistan. And when that happens the Ghazb-e-Hind will be launched with a massive terror operation across India.
The India connection: The intelligence bureau in India says that his death has come exactly at a time when Pakistan’s ISI wanted it the most. He was beginning to become an embarrassment for the Pakistan establishment. There existence of Kashmiri only meant that the system would have been exposed. The recent attack at Karachi and also the 26/11 attack are two incidents that the ISI would rather let the world forget. The death of Shehzad and now Kashmiri are clear indications of the fact that the ISI wants to conceal a lot. For Shehzad, Kashmiri was a big source for his stories and during their interactions many aspects regarding the involvement of the ISI in various attacks had begun to come to light. The naval base attack at Karachi was something that Shehzad had been writing about and he had started to expose the infiltration of the Al-Qaeda into the Pakistani establishment. This was something that the ISI could not afford at this time since the ongoing trial at Chicago too has put the ISI in a very embrassing situation. One one hand Headley claims that it was the ISI which was behind this attack to some extent and on the other Rana too had said that he was an ISI agent and not a Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative. On the other hand there is a suit filed by the Israeli family against the ISI and the court had decided on issuing summons to the ISI leadership.
The IB says that with the death of Osama Bin Laden, there has been a change in the mindset of the terror outfits. They expected the ISI to protect him, but today feel let down. Moreover the ISI had also softened its stance against the US and was seen making their peace in order to avoid any sort of embarrassment in the US courts. This effectively meant that the terror groups were hell bent on battling the ISI. Kashmiri in particular has been very vocal about the ISI and the establishment did expect him to continue speaking out against the ISI. When this was the case, the ISI must have thought it is better to blow his cover and get the US to eliminate who anyways have him on their hit list.
Indian agencies also point out that in the past few months, Kashmiri had been showing keen interest in India. He not only wanted to battle Indian forces in Kashmir, but also wanted to carry out operations across the country. He had termed his operation as Ghazb-e-Hind. IB reports suggest that a large recruitment drive had already commenced and a major of cadres from Kerala had been roped in and were being trained under him. The IB says he sure was a big threat to India and his elimination has come as very good news.

Photo courtesy: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/The statement by US State Department spokesman Mark Toner has been a very encouraging one for Indian investigating agencies probing the David Headley case He had said yesterday that they would look into it and also consider further access to Headley if the need be.

This is a very encouraging statement for India, since somewhere down the line during the course of the Headley trial, Indian agencies felt a bit let down when he suddenly went soft on the ISI. The trial had begun with a lot of promise and during the first half Headley had spoken considerably about the ISI. However in the second half he appeared to have gone soft on the ISI and said that the top management never knew about the attack.

Officers who interrogated Headley the last time say that there was not a lot of new information that came out. This was largely due to the plea bargaining that Headley had entered into and this actually gave him the security not to divulge more than what he had already said at first. Thanks to this legal issue, there were many questions that remained unanswered and there was not much scope to ask further questions.

However if at all we do manage to get access to him the second time, the questioning would be slightly different. We would be armed with his testimony before the court and also the verdict of the court at Chicago. This would give the Indian investigating agencies more room to interrogate Headley since there will be some fresh questions that would be need to be asked.

The point that India is looking to make in this case is the ISI angle to the case. Although Headley did the turn around and said only a select few of the ISI were involved in this attack. However India has maintained that this attack was completely sponsored by the establishment. The new angle would also be the Ilyas Kashmiri angle which is today being spoken about in the Pakistani media. Kashmiri himself had made a claim to the Late Salim Shehzad that it was the Al-Qaeda which planned the attack and was later hijacked by the ISI. It is a well known fact that David Headley was closely associated with Kashmiri and they did share a lot during the time of the Mickey Mouse project.

India would look to get more information on this aspect and whether Headley and Kashmiri had discussed anything about the 26/11 plot. This would be a very interesting aspect since if Indian agencies do manage to confirm this through Headley then the entire case would have a new dimension. This would not only attribute the attack to the Al-Qaeda but would nail the ISI which eventually cleared or hijacked the attack.

India does hope that the second round of interrogation, if at all granted access would be a more productive one. We are yet to ascertain whose help Headley had taken locally to go about his work. This continues to remain a dark part of the investigation since it is impossible that only he and Rana may have gone about this job all by themselves, sources also said.